Sunday, July 24, 2005

Serengeti Trek

Hello to everyone that was in my group during the Serengeti Trek! I will be posting several pictures for you later on this week, so come back in a day or two.

Story Time: During the past week at the daily kid's camp (or DVBS), we had a competition for the leaders during one of the main sessions. They had the leaders from the various troupes competing against one another. They handed us a clear plastic tube that was about two metres long and then they used a funnel and cracked an egg open into each side, allowing the yolk to travel into the middle. The idea was that both contestants would start blowing on either side, trying to force the egg yolk towards the other person. If you lost, you got a mouthful of egg yolk! Yuck!

I went up against a leader named Murph from Zach's Pack, the Zebra group. I was taking a deep breath, getting ready to blow my hardest. They yelled, "One, Two, Three...GO!" and I blew my hardest right away. Only then did I see that Murph had chosen that very second to pull the tube away from his mouth and he was pointing his end right at me. I already blown that egg yolk forcefully through the tube, so it all came splashing right into my own face! It was dripping down the back of my neck, into and onto my shirt and it was all over my arms.

That was pretty funny, all right. I have no given Murph the nickname Egg (to borrow a nickname from someone else). And to top it off, I won that battle because Murph gave up. My team, the Lug's Thugs (we were elephant group) got into the finals for this competition because of my nobel sacrifice and because our other leaders had won their battles. The finale was a tense struggle that took more than one minute to complete as the two women leaders slowly blew the egg yolk one way and then the other through the tube. I tell ya, I don't think that there's anything quite as bad as blowing furiously and seeing the egg yolk slowly travel up towards your mouth. Blagh! In the end, our team won that egg contest.

And finally, here's another picture that the day camp staff has up on their website under the Wednesday section. The two guys on the right were part of my group. (I know their names, of course, but I'll be discreet about posting them on the internet.)



Thursday, July 21, 2005

People

I had a discussion last night with friends in my cell group regarding homelessness in London. I know two guys that have taken the initiative of taking bag lunches to give to homeless people while they chat with them. They have an idea to develop this into a church ministry but for now it's just these two 20-something guys. They're going into downtown London again on an upcoming Thursday at around 11:00 pm. If anyone wants to join us, get a hold of me. (And Abe, I do want to talk to you about this initiative to get your "expert opinion.")

I'm spending every morning this week at my church as a group leader for the daily kids camp (or DVBS) that we're running. I have 8 young guys in grades 5 and 6. I have pictures and stories that I might post later but for now you'll have to by satisfied with this picture from the church's website:

Sunday, July 17, 2005

News & Reviews

I managed to squeeze in a quick meal with the Terrys last Friday. I gave Grace a gift for her birthday, the boardgame Cranium. I then took Tara, Candace and Grace to the drive-in theatre and we watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and then Batman Begins. (Sorry, Laura!) It was the first drive-in experience for Candace and Grace, so that was fun. I'm always surprised at how people have never gone to a drive-in theatre.

I've seen Batman before and I find that it lost a little bit on the second viewing. In particular, the last twenty minutes of non-stop action was fun but obvious. That part was like the usual summer action movie or comic miniseries and it bored me a bit. Willy Wonka was fun. Johnny Depp had his usual fun with the role, playing Wonka as the eccentric that he must be rather than the cooky-yet-personable character that Gene Wilder played in the original movie. And the songs were left to the Oompa Loompas, thankfully.

Since Tim Burton was the director, this new version included more backstory for Wonka that related to his father, as played by Christopher Lee. (You all remember him as Saruman in Lord of the Rings, right? Legend of numerous classic horror films from the '50s?) The twist at the end of the movie veered in a completely different direction from the original movie and the undertones was more subversive and self-deprecating. I find that I prefer the twist at the end of the original movie more, so this new movie felt pretty flat at the end. I certainly enjoyed the movie as a whole. The characters of Charlie and Wonka kept me invested in the movie.

And now for other movie trivia: Ever notice how Star Wars doesn't have any railings? It's a very serious question, as discussed here.

Y'know how Windows comes with the card game Hearts? I prefer Solitaire myself, but this blog post has a couple of interesting bits of trivia. That post links to this blog post, in which one of the original Windows 95 developers helped fix a bug in the program and as a reward one of the computer opponents in that game was named after his wife. It also references an old article by Dave Barry that refers to these computer players by an unfriendly term. Heh.

Thursday, July 14, 2005

Happy Birthday, Grace!

"Happy birthday to you. Happy birthday to you..." Tara and I are going out to the Terrys place on Friday night (July 14) to celebrate Grace's birthday a day late. If anyone wants to join us, give me or the Terrys a call.


Friday, July 8, 2005

A Hairy Situation

My mom cut my hair this past week and she thought it would be funny to take a couple of snap shots. Here's the "Before" picture:



During the hair cut:


After the hair cut:


And finally, my dad saw a humourous situation the other day. I was standing in front of my workplace at the end of the day chatting with one my co-workers while I waited for my dad to pick me up. I have red hair that was cut very short recently, with the accompanying stubble on my face. My co-worker has grown his red hair to an impressive length. The juxtaposition is pretty good, don't you think?

Wednesday, July 6, 2005

Welcome and Congrats

Welcome back to the digital world, Richard. It's been a while since you visited us here, eh?

Congratulations to Mike (and Kate) on graduation.

Monday, July 4, 2005

Recent Pictures

I've added a new folder to my photo website for recent pictures. It includes one from the last FCCC Youth party that we had, when we went to Hooks and had the private party on the second floor. It also includes some recent pictures from a few weeks ago when I took my Little fishing for his first time, along the Thames River in my backyard.



Many thanks to my mom for taking and converting these digital pictures for me.